Republicans seem to have a new found interest in the Electoral Reform movement. An article today from the extremist rightwing web publication WorldNetDaily attacks Sen. Hillary Clinton's election reform bill with quotes from several critics, but none from either Clinton or other supporters of the bill.

In Ohio, state Republican legislators are attempting to raise the cost for candidates seeking a recount after an election. While in Georgia, Republican legislators are trying to pass laws requiring voters to produce Photo ID at the polls.

And yesterday, Ohio Republican Congressman, Bob Ney, chairman of the U.S. House Administrative Committee held hearings in Columbus on the massive reported problems during the 2004 Presidential Election in the Buckeye state.

Perhaps something is suddenly causing Republicans to try and get on the offensive when it comes to the drumbeat of Election Reform now surging across America.

But it's a brand-spanking new, outta-nowhere, just-in-time-for-yesterday's-hearings, Talon News-like "Voting Rights" organization that has caught our eye for the moment.

According to Internic records, the ACVR was established on the web just last Thursday and early investigation into this group would seem to indicate that it is little more than a front group for Republican operatives with little or no interest in actual "Voting Rights" at all.

While Hearne is listed as a witness for yesterday's hearings on the U.S. Committee for House Administration website as "National Counsel, American Center for Voting Rights", there is no mention of his affiliation or extensive work for Bush/Cheney '00, '04 and other Republicans.

Hearne, a former Reagan Administration official, is the National Election Counsel to Bush-Cheney '04 Inc. and was Missouri counsel to Bush-Cheney ?00 Inc. As well, he was General Counsel to Republican Missouri Governor Blunt.

He is pictured, at a March 5, 2005 Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) reception in Ohio, at the bottom of this article. The RNLA is an off-shoot of the national Republican Party.

But Hearne is not the only high-level Republican operative working for the tax-exempt "non-partisan" 501(c)3 organization...

On January 15, 2005 in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Hearne was asked directly about "voter fraud"...

Does a lot of voter fraud occur?

I do not know. It would be hard for me to see that you could commit voter fraud on a level that you can influence an election, only if the election was within more than 1 percent, well maybe 2 percent.

None the less, in a 31 page report [PDF] --- named "ThorReport.pdf" on the ACVR website --- turned into the House Admin Committee yesterday to coincide with Hearne's testimony, "voter fraud" is suddenly the utmost concern to Mr. Hearne.

The report, in which Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, II is listed as the leading "contributor", details problems in Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election. No, not the ones where thousands of votes appeared out of nowhere for George W. Bush, or the hundreds (thousands?) of reports of voters attempting to vote for Kerry on touchscreen machines only to have their votes counted for Bush. The ACVR report claims that several Progressive and Liberal organizations committed criminal acts of fraud by illegally registering non-existant voters.

This voter registration effort was not limited to registration of legal voters but, criminal investigations and news reports suggest, that this voter registration effort also involved the registration of thousands of fictional voters such as the, now infamous, Jive F. Turkey, Sr., Dick Tracy and Mary Poppins. Those individuals registering these fictional voters were reportedly paid not just money to do so but were, in at least one instance, paid in crack cocaine.

The fraudulent voter registrations, however, appear to be only part of the effort of these organizations to influence the election.

As we've had only limited time to look into this story so far today, we've not yet been able to reach Hearne or Dyke for comment. Nor have we had time to look into the backgrounds of the other names included as "contributors" to the Thor Report available on the ACVR website.

For more information on the "non-partisan" tax-exempt ACVR scam and the snakeoil salesmen who invented it, Bush/Cheney '04 National General Counsel Mark F. "Thor" Hearne and RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke, please see BRAD BLOG's full Special Coverage of the "American Center for Voting Rights" at http://www.BradBlog.com/ACVR.

You're on the story as usual. These guys are even worse than the "Swift-Boat" Crew.

I think there's an old saying - "don't beat a dead horse." Any allegations about phony voters like Mary Poppins or Dick Tracy - are so pathetic & futile, it just reinforces the fact that the Repubs have absolutely no case of their own for the gross voting rights irregularities in Ohio this past November.

Every county in Ohio had a gross violation in one way or another. Ohio stinks to high heaven. Ohio is the complete opposite of how the election was conducted in neighboring state to the north - MICHIGAN - where there was virtually no reports of voting irregularities - @ least no where near the scale of Ohio, Florida - or any other state for that matter.

How come whenever these "new groups" that have Republican roots get formed, they have immediate access to congressional hearing? Was someone like Bev Harris from blackboxvoting.org there? Someone who has a track record? It's just like when "new group" Talon news suddenly gets shoved ahead of other veteran reporters for the White House press corps. How come only "new groups" with Republican ties get immediate legitimacy as witnesses? Brad, you should investigate how a group formed a week ago, gets qualification as a witness in an important hearing. Who made that decision??? Track it down. You're the best investigative reporter on the net. This reeks of Talon News/GOPUSA, etc... There's a pattern that newly formed "groups", but only with Republican ties, get immediate access and legitimacy, over other groups with long track records. Bev Harris is "truely" non-partisan, when it comes to being a voter irregularity witness. I think they create these groups on the fly and give them a forum to spread propoganda. It's got to stop!

"Prior to joining ACVR, Hearne served as National Election Counsel to Bush-Cheney 04 and Missouri counsel to Bush-Cheney 00. Hearne has also served as General Counsel to Missouri Governor Blunt, and was appointed by then Secretary of State Blunt as an advisor for the implementation of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Hearne testified before the Missouri commission established by Blunt to investigate the 2000 Missouri general election and voter fraud in the city of St. Louis. Hearne also served as General Counsel to the re-election campaigns of Congressman Kenny Hulshof and Congressman Todd Akin."

so they're not completely unscrupulous slimeballs...but just not completely

"From September through the election, Hearne traveled to every battleground state and oversaw more than 65 different lawsuits that concerned the conduct of the election. Every case was favorably resolved and included matters before various state supreme courts, several emergency appeals to the 6th circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and writs to the U.S. Supreme Court as well as litigation in multiple federal district and state trial courts."

"I was asked by President Bushs uncle, Bucky Bush, to be the general counsel to the Bush-Cheney campaign in Missouri in the fall of 2003. (I had worked with the Bush campaign in 2000 and successfully represented the campaign in the City of St. Louis poll closing litigation and in Florida in 2000 in Broward County.)"

A complete history of Mr. Hearne's "non partisan" activities and associations should be compiled and sent to all members of this "hearing", while it is in progress, and after to everyone who is provided with a report on the hearing. WHAT A FARCE!

They'll produce a report lying about the hearing, wherein there was lying about the election, where there was lying about voting, following a compaign full of lies, after a war based on lies, preceded by lying to allies and the world, lying about CIA agents, lying to the American people, lying about military service in the air force, lies, lies, lies - I guess one lie does lead to another. Eventually, they will run out of lies and their heads will fall off due to all the toxic cancerous lying

Holy cow. Imagine how many TENS of votes you could muster up by bribing crack heads with crack! That's far more threatening than the totally vulnerable Diebold central vote tabulators that 40,000,000 votes are tabulated on! Give me an F-ing break. Blackboxvoting.org just demonstated on 3/8/05 that Diebold central vote tabulators setup just like they were on 112/04 were/are WIDE OPEN TO REMOTE MANIPULATION. What's unknown is if a conspiracy-of-one had the balls to try to hack into Diebold tabulators across the country.

How convenient that the concerns of this voting rights group are things that could only affect a few votes.

I bet those voter registration issues, like the "infamous Jive F. Turkey", are fake! Oh please Brad, dig into those claims a little more. My crystal ball says that all or nearly all of those claims are made up, with no basis in fact!

Hello out there...doesn't this sound like a play
from the Karl Rove fascist playbook. We need boots on the ground in Ohio tracking these people down. We need to confront them and make them uncomfortable
with thier choice of whoring for Rove/Cheney/Bush.
Rove---the brain
Cheney--the money man
Bush--the trained front chimp.

The Cincinnati crew:
Pat Dewine is indeed the son of the congressman and is also a republican Cincinnati City Council member.
Chip Gerhardt is the co-chair of the Hamilton County Republican party and also owns a political marketting firm.
The rest are members of a law firm who fought with (not against) Ken Blackwell to have appointed "challengers" at polling places to challenge voters identification in the supposed assumption of massive voter fraud in Ohio re: intimidate folks in predominantly democratic neighborhoods.

I'd like to see them get Blackwell's reaction to this on video tape. Won't do much good right now but when it all falls down, would be nice to have when they do the documentaries for public television about the election of 2004.

From your remarks, I'll bet you live in Ohio. I'm with you! If I'd lived in Ohio, I'd be actively carsick too. It's nauseating enough living anywhere in the U.S. right now.

How can anything so transparently contrived have ANY influence on the courts and public policy? Has BushCo managed to castrate the entire judicial system of this country? Don't answer. I don't think I want to hear what you have to say.

I think the Republican criminals are finally losing it. They are going to get throttled 'big time' with this damage control "thong" (inept attempt to cover their backsides). This one will be easy to use to expose their dishonesty and stupidity. Get this story published anywhere and everywhere - every last tidbit. Thanks, Brad and everyone. Keep hitting them with their own trash. There are MILLIONS of decent Americans who want this bunch (numbering in the HUNDREDS at most) thrown out of office and into jail. They are OUTNUMBERED. They can't win. They are just holding on by their "thongs"!

Here's the thing: registering phony voters is NOT VOTER FRAUD!!! Unless someone claiming to be Mary Poppins shows up and demands to cast a ballot, the only fraud was committed against the group paying crack-heads to register voters. This is the only damn example the Rebublicans ever bring up and they always quote the names as if the funnier they are, the more outraged some unthinking, braindead Rebub will be.

Filling out a voter registration form under a fake name has absolutely no impact on anyone's ability to vote nor the results of any vote. This is NOT VOTER FRAUD!!!

Brad. Here's why I think this organization was formed. The House hearings about vote fraud were a week away, and the Republicans have no interest whatsoever in voter's rights. They have no groups, they didn't have thousands of complaints like the Dems did. So, they fabricated this group on the fly, to have at least some representation at these hearings. Otherwise, they couldn't drive the hearings away from the real issues. Keep up on this one, Brad, because if you discredit this group, the GOP will have NO representation at these hearings, and they will look bad for trying another Jeff Gannon:male-prostitute fake news sham. It's a sham, but we take to long to uncover it. EXCEPT FOR YOU!!!

This one could be huge. Seems like a "little thang," but it betrays the entire pattern. We've all gotta make a joyful noise unto the heavens on this one. They have no defense against us if we push hard here, and it's wonderfully convenient that this is the number one issue facing us, because if changes aren't made in the way votes are cast, counted, and tabulated, the good guys will never win another "election." I'm sure we all agree that the status quo is unacceptable, to say the least. And Peg C. (and anyone who might be thinking about leaving the country for greener pastures), things are bad in Ohio, and they're bad everywhere else in the US, but they're also bad all over the world as a result of the policies of this repugnacon admin. Americans are still well loved around the world, and most of the people I've met in my travels have had nothing but sympathy for us. They've always been mystified by Americans' feeble acceptance of the Warren Commission, they saw what we couldn't see about Viet Nam long before we Americans could, and right to the present, they scratch their heads over the "re-election" of him who must not be named under any circumstances. Their one weak spot is that they still can't believe that a few money-grubbers could rig the election and get away with it. Let's show them the way this time! This is an excellent place to start the offensive. (On a personal note, my heart will be going kerthumpity thump the next time I go through customs when entering the States, wondering if there might already be a watch list for blog posters... We have to change this vile atmosphere!))

"We have to change this vile atmosphere!" Do we ever!! I feel like a hostage in my own country. As "Patch" Adams said at the beginning of the doculentary "Clowns in Kabul," we need to stop this "stupid, dangerous man who is leading our country." (Or close enough, the quote, that is)

Czaragorn #32 - "On a personal note, my heart will be going kerthumpity thump the next time I go through customs when entering the States, wondering if there might already be a watch list for blog posters... We have to change this vile atmosphere!"

:crazy:
Would just like to remind everyone that they can put their money where their mouth is and buy blue.
There are a couple of websites out there telling you which companies donated to the republican election campaign. google it. BuyBlue.org is one of them.
This may ultimately be more important than voting.